“... more modest way, the ‘long awaited motorists’ driving manual’ 1288 (BBS, 317 pp., £18.99, 3 May 2000, 1 903029 00 7) by Derek Bracegirdle subverts certain assumptions, too. (I don’t understand the title.) The book, ‘probably the most exciting, enthralling and entertaining driver’s compendium ever to reach the bookstand’, has been ‘compiled ...”

“... of memory, scalded into a state of permanent vigilance (‘never again’). Such high-alert modes may only be for groups and nations that reiterate one central truth at the expense of others. (The exercise of the imagination may look to them like denial or frivolity, as Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s film The Lives of ...”

“... deliberately put about in order to persuade or mislead. The poet, we are invited to conclude, may have chosen to appear bluff, insular and faux-xenophobic (or just xenophobic), but he wasn’t really like that, or at least there was a lot more to him than that, and the ‘more’ included the subtler, knowing self who was responsible for designing the ...”

“... the fiasco as Churchill. Nonetheless, it hung round his neck like an albatross for decades, and may have influenced other of his policies, though not in the same way that trench warfare had. Churchill was the leading figure among those who believed that it had almost worked, and would have done but for poor commanders in the field, cowardly troops and some ...”

“... from between the fourth pre-molar (or wolf-tooth) and the corner incisor in the lower jaw. They may reach a foot in length, although eight inches is more common. Xenophon warns of their heat: the angrier the boar the hotter they become. The tusks of the boar of Kalydon, displayed first in the temple of Athene at Tegea in Arcadia and later in Rome, were ...”

“... the nature of political systems, the psychology of leaders. What precipitates a conflict, though, may be a sudden, unforeseen event: an accident, misreading or miscalculation, or a temperamental leader’s flash of hubris. Often, of course, it is a combination of such things. Yet there is nothing inevitable about the outbreak of conflict. (Bear in mind when I ...”

“... of the 20th century, exercises such as Løvborg’s had come to seem ridiculous. Today, the tide may be turning again. The probable lines of humanity’s future were heavily trailed in the last chapter of Sapiens, which Harari has expanded to form the core of Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. As he tells it, our species has done great things already ...”

“... EEC did not do very much, and that its conduct in the case left much to be desired. Some excuse may lie in the pioneering nature of the action. Anti-trust laws are a relatively recent phenomenon in Europe and have not been pursued with the same vigour as in America. Cartels have plagued European enterprise for generations; it will take some time for the ...”

“... be derogatory: as a historian of the 18th century, I am more aware than most of the benefits which may be derived from monarchical or semi-monarchical structures, provided they are enlightened – and there is no doubt that our President is a man of culture. Nonetheless, the concept of a ‘personalised regime’ remains in itself inadequate to construe the ...”

“... repairs. The moral ambiguities of the situation are explored, but not the practical one which may well face many: would it be possible to get the job done otherwise? State of the World is a product of concern for ecology. Being against misuse of resources today is like being against sin in the Victorian era: an easy position if you don’t start to think ...”

“... a notable inebriate) attributed to senates is largely the stuff of legend. To see what lessons may be learned from abroad, Meg Russell has examined seven upper houses in modern democracies. Rather oddly, she omits without comment the most powerful upper house in the world, the United States Senate, but her seven examples still cover a wide range. The ...”

“... interference. The very existence of arbitrary power, however permissively or even benignly it may be exercised, reduces men to servitude; and free individuals can exist only in free states. The roots of the republican idea are traceable to ancient Rome and to the revival of republicanism in Renaissance Italy. Something like this conception of what it ...”

“... indirect style, but his slightly stagey horror at the likely excesses of the first-person mode may nonetheless strike a chord with readers of a variety of free-running or confessional forms, not just novels (think Christmas circular letters). But what about autobiography or memoir? Surely here self-revelation is of the essence. Yet James’s stricture ...”

“... and seem not to have any market value at all. (Titanium implants and precious metal tooth fillings may be returned to the family after cremation or, under certain circumstances, sold off as scrap metal.) In the past, ‘resurrectionists’ used to dig up newly buried bodies to sell on to medical schools for anatomy classes, but the corpse’s next of kin never ...”

“... oddities of the current ubiquity of regret is how little political purchase it has. Politicians may regret their personal behaviour when it catches them out. But they rarely, if ever, regret their public actions, which they have been trained to defend at all costs. No, Theresa May says, I don’t regret calling the ...”